Appraisal of the Legal Framework and Regulation on Automobile Emissions: Nigeria Perspectives

The paper examined the efficacy of legal framework and enforcement of vehicular emission in Nigeria. The paper posits that the vast technological improvement in the manufacturing of automobiles and awareness in developed countries, the need to dispose of their obsolete and end of life vehicles for better environmental friendly vehicles, the interest of developing countries, like Nigeria, to meet up with global trends, improve their standard of living and alleviate poverty rate has turned them to willing recipients of used vehicles. This has a large share in the despoliation of air quality in the country by the release of high amounts of pollutants into the Nigerian atmosphere, thereby, causing headaches, loss of vision, anemia, forgetfulness and fatigue, high blood pressure, heart and circulatory diseases, cause abnormal foetal development and others. The article adopts the doctrinal approach of analytically and comparatively used of legal rules founded in primary sources; and statutes to critic the efficacy of the legal regimes in force in Nigeria. The objective of this paper was to further critic the efficacy of extant laws and regulations in Nigeria, the impact and enforcement challenges of pollution from vehicular emissions and its adverse effect on the global environmental concern. The paper concludes and recommended that all the facilities, officials and resources required should be made available to ensure that there is continuous and sound monitoring exercise of the Nigerian environment especially in areas of vehicular emissions devoid of the peculiar mix of polities, in order to properly audit the quality of air.